Articles
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Ask the Experts: Toddlers and Background Noise
In this installment of Ask the Mediatrician, we offer a parent of a toddler guidance regarding the impacts of background media — TV, music, etc. — on their child’s development.
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Ask the Experts: Teens, Photos, and Online Privacy
The Mediatrician offers a parent of a teenager strategies to support her daughter’s healthy and safe use of photo sharing on social media.
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Ask the Experts: Gradeschoolers and Video Games
In this installment of Ask the Mediatrician, we talk about strategies for supporting a school age child’s healthy use of video games.
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What To Do When… You’re not sure how to talk to your young child about media
It may feel awkward, but talking to babies and toddlers about media can help to build their communication and social emotional skills while developing their healthy engagement with technology and media. We offer strategies for talking to your pre-verbal child about what they’re seeing on a screen.
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What To Do When… You’re concerned your child is being cyberbullied
Studies indicate that 20-40% of children experience cyberbullying, with the prevalence higher for girls and LGBTQIA children. In this post, we provide suggestions for conversation starters to address your concerns with your child in a way that helps them to speak openly and without feeling shame.
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What To Do When… You see inappropriate content on your teen’s social media page
We offer strategies and conversation starters for parents who find inappropriate content — such as drug or alcohol use, hateful language, or sexually explicit photos — on their child’s social media.
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Ask the Experts: Teens and Bingewatching and Doomscrolling
In this installment of Ask the Mediatrician, we offer a parent of a teenager strategies to help him break the mindless habit of staying up all night binge watching and doomscrolling and otherwise losing sleep by spending time mindlessly online.
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Ask the Experts: Middle Schoolers and R-Rated Movies
In this installment of Ask the Mediatrician, we offer a parent guidance for what to do when her middle-schooler is begging to see an R-rated movie all his friends have already seen.
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Ask the Experts: E-books vs. Print Books for Toddlers
In this installment of Ask the Mediatrician, we offer a parent of a toddler guidance regarding the use of e-books for reading together.
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What to Do When… Your child’s friends have greater access online than they do
It’s not easy for a child when their friends get things they don’t. In this post, we offer some conversation starters for helping your child deal with their envy and FOMO and to understand where you’re coming from.
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Social Media-lutions 2022
This year, social media continues to be popular among teenagers. As 2022 approaches, consider making a New Year’s social media-lution–a resolution around social media use–with your teen to help them use social media in ways that are healthy and fun!
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Digital Wellness Lab Applauds Surgeon General’s Youth Mental Health Advisory
In October 2021, when the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association released a statement declaring the “worsening crisis in child and adolescent mental health” a national emergency, it was a familiar story.
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Building Social-Emotional Skills With Technology: How to Use SEL to Cultivate Digital Wellness
Throughout the past two decades, social-emotional learning has evolved into one of the most frequently talked about (and researched) topics within the field of education.
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Is Social Media the Tobacco of the 21st Century?
Social media, as former Facebook president Sean Parker famously acknowledged, is “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology” by creating a “social validation feedback loop”. In a country where over 85% of adults, 84% of teens, and more than half (53%) of children own or have consistent access to smartphones, interactive media are available and insistent.…
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Taking the pulse: Kids’ media use during the COVID-19 pandemic
The Digital Wellness Lab surveyed real parents to find out how they feel about their child’s media use and remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the pandemic has made a big impact on the lives of all of us, school-aged children and teens have faced some unique disruptions…